Card connectors in which a card member such as memory card having card-side terminals at the leading edge thereof is inserted in a card holding member having mother-apparatus-side terminals so that the card member is held by the card holding device with the card-side terminals being in contact with the mother-apparatus-side terminals have been previously disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No.11-135192 for example. The card connector disclosed therein consists of a plate-like card member, a card holding member having mother-apparatus-side terminals on one edge and an opening on the other edge to provide a bottomed rectangular space, and a slider that is situated on one of side walls in the width-wise direction within the card holding member and slides along with the insertion and withdrawal of the card member into and out of the card holding member.
The slider, having a right-angled parallelepiped shape, is equipped with engaging protrusions on the card member side face thereof which engage with the engaging indention formed on the side of the card member. For this configuration, when the card member is inserted into the card holding member, the protrusions on the slider and the indention on the card member engage with one another and the card member thereby can be engaged with the slider.
Moreover, the slider is provided with a cam groove in the side face opposite the side face on the card member side. The cam groove constitutes a cam mechanism together with the cam protrusions formed on the internal wall of the card holding member opposing the slider's side face on which the came groove is formed. The cam mechanism has a function of positioning and holding the card member, according to the push-in operation of the card member, either in a contact position where the card member held by the card holding member with the card-side terminals being in contact with the mother-apparatus-side terminals or in a insertion/extraction position where the card member can be inserted in or extracted from the card holding member.
Therefore, when pushing the card member into the card holding member in order to seat the card member in the card holding member, the card member is retained in the contact position by the cam mechanism, or the card member is held by the card holding member with the card-side terminals being in contact with the mother-apparatus-side terminals. Furthermore, when the card member in the contact position is pushed inside the card holding member in order to extract the card member from the card holding member, the cam mechanism moves the card member to the insertion/extraction allowing position and holds it there to establish a situation under which the card member can be extracted from the card holding member.
With this construction, as the cam protrusions of the cam mechanism are provided on the internal wall of the card holding member opposing the side face of the slider, the width of the card connector determined to accommodate the width of the card member is enlarged and the number of assembly steps are also increased.
In this construction, to facilitate the insertion of the card member in the slider, the engaging protrusions provided on the slider are formed in the semicircular shape (round shape) and the slider is pushed against the card holding member by a spring biased to the side of the opening of the card holding member. Therefore, when the card member is pushed in and then the hand is removed from the card member for extracting the card member, the slider moves under the force of the spring to the side of the opening of the card holding member and stops at the insertion/extraction allowing position. However, in the insertion/extraction allowing position, the force is exerted from the engaging indentions of the card member to the engaging protrusions in the direction to release the engaging protrusions from the engagement, and the slider moves in the direction in which the protrusions disengage from the indentions, which results in a forceful expulsion of the card member from the card holding member.